First, some geography: the field rises at the side of the road 4 or 5 feet and then dips in a long, gradual slope. Move to the verge to make way for a car and you lose the ability to see into the field.
This Spring has favored exceptional blue skies and such green-gold beginnings that I find myself looking for any reason to find vistas that give my eye both. One such long view opens up the ridgelines to the north in a cascade. I had stopped with the dogs on a short leash and was lost in that picture when the car appeared 60 yards away. I moved to the side, and as I always do, herded them between me and the road. I waved to the driver to make sure he had seen me. When he had passed, I turned my face south, to the field, and at that instant a turkey vulture materialized, his left wing even with and a foot or so away from my left eye. He had caught a thermal, and riding down into the dip of the field followed its rising until he emerged at the road, at my side, his head turned at the last second to take in my still form. His eye looked like my dogs’ eyes, a dark pupil and an olive green iris.
The moment broke off, and he ascended, turning, throwing another glance down, still rising, and finally moving over the tree line and disappearing.
I live for these visitations that can expunge a day of bad news. Give me something incandescent with a bird, a child, a turtle, a fox, and that good fortune can keep my spirits going. Something feral and sacred shows itself in those who love animals and land and sky, when animals reveal the density of their lives in close quarters. I feel as if I should chant or carve a pictograph into a garden stone. Love, instantaneous and obliterating, fills my throat and then fills me up.
